


Warnings of a Bard

by BliBBloB



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Session, Gen, SBURB Guide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BliBBloB/pseuds/BliBBloB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A six-player Sburb session in the same universe as the kids gets kicked off and, like with the kids, has more in store than they expected. Luckily they have tentacleTherapist's walkthrough... Until she rips it out of spacetime. Faced with the task of completing the supposedly doomed game, the session's leader(Chaz Keneagy, the Bard of Time) records his knowledge of Sburb into a walkthrough.</p>
<p>This is told through the walkthrough he creates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

Right, here I go.

If you're reading this, you are about to play Sburb or have already started. Either way, there's no turning back from this insane game, and you'll probably need some help. I did, and in my opinion, I'm a little better than the average Sburb player.

Who am I? My name's Chaz Keneagy, or temporalTemperature on Pesterchum. I'm the "leader" of a six-player Sburb session, and the title I got was Bard of Time. I've been in the session for about a week, but due to some Weird Time Shit I get the feeling this'll still get to you on April 13th, the day I started. These Sburb walkthroughs have a level of circumstantial simultaneity. Anyway, for the past week in the session, I've been following tentacleTherapist's walkthrough, but now she's ripped it out of Spacetime. So I'll pick up her slack. So here we go, let's get your first player into the game.

PART I-ENTERING THE GAME

First, install the game. Set up one player as the server and the other as the client. The server will manipulate the client's surroundings and be able to watch the client throughout the game. The client will have a meteor summoned to their house which will destroy it. Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, there's nothing you could have done to prevent it. The meteor was coming either way.

Okay, if you play your cards right, the meteor won't kill your client, but you'd better get to work quick. The game actually saves you from the meteor if you're any good. But the game is really fucking hard. Let's get down to business.

Also, make sure you have a Strife Specibus set in your Sylladex before you enter the game. You'll need it.

PART I SECTION I-THE PHERNALIA REGISTRY

The server will notice a couple of options. To save your client's life, don't waste time with anything but the Phernalia registry right now. Trust me. There are three things currently there. A Totem Lathe, a Cruxtruder, and an Alchemiter. They're all required for something called Alchemy, I'll get to that later. Right now, the server just needs to put these things down. Make them as close together as possible and under no circumstances block any doors with them. You won't be able to pick them up again.

PART I SECTION I ARTICLE I-THE TOTEM LATHE

The Totem Lathe is the thin one. It'll carve a cruxite dowel for you(see ARTICLE II-THE CRUXTRUDER) when fed with a punched CAPTCHALOG card. The dowel is used for Alchemy(again, see later sections), but it also has a much more immediate purpose with a Pre-Punched card you'll see soon. There's not much else I can say here without telling you about the other items available.

PART I SECTION I ARTICLE II-THE CRUXTRUDER

This is the smaller of the two large square ones. As soon as you get it in, drop something heavy on it. This'll open it, giving you an aforementioned cruxite dowel, an unprototyped Kernelsprite, and a countdown. Two of these are relevant to this section. The Kernelsprite gets its own section later.

The timer/countdown shows how long you have until the meteor hits. You may have a minute to six hours, but don't waste a second now. As for the cruxite dowel, take it and the Pre-punched card(see ARTICLE IV-THE PRE-PUNCHED CARD) to the Totem Lathe to get the carved totem mentioned above. Hurry!

PART I SECTION I ARTICLE III-THE ALCHEMETER

This is the huge one, a big platform. This scans a carved cruxite dowel/totem and creates the relevant object, part of the alchemy process. These objects will cost you "build grist" except for the one on the Pre-punched card, since you need it to enter the game. These objects range from an apple to a bottle to, as one person put it, "an eggy lookin thign"[sic]. You'll have to figure out a way to break the object to enter the Medium. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

PART I SECTION I ARTICLE IV-THE PRE-PUNCHED CARD

This is a CAPTCHALOG card with a pattern of rectangular holes in it. The client needs to take this to the Totem Lathe along with the cruxite dowel in order to carve the totem to create the Alchemeter's object. There's not much more to say here. The last thing in the Phernalia registry, the Punch Designix, isn't important yet, it'll show up in PART II-ENTERING THE MEDIUM.

PART I SECTION II-THE KERNELSPRITE


	2. The Kernelsprite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaz's description of the Kernelsprite and its role in the early game

PART I SECTION II-THE KERNELSPRITE

IMPORTANT: Tier-1 prototype this before entering the Medium to avoid a void session!

Upon entering the Medium, this will be a guide for the client. I'll try to take on those duties as well with this walkthrough. But for now, it's a glowy gibberish ball that just popped out of the Cruxtruder.

PART I SECTION II ARTICLE I-GETTING THE KERNELSPRITE

This is basically a recap. Dropping something heavy on the Cruxtruder opens it, releasing the cruxite dowel and the Kernelsprite. You already know what to do with the dowel.

PART I SECTION II ARTICLE II-TIER 1 PROTOTYPING

Tier-1 Prototyping is putting something in the Kernelsprite that will affect it. There is also a Tier-2 prototyping, we'll get to that later.

Tip 1: Use something that couldn't be too much of a threat to you if you can help it. Everything you put in before the client enters the Medium will affect the enemies you'll have to fight. A raggedy teddy bear will give these enemies its traits, so if it's missing an arm, there goes the arms of the mooks. I used an old teddy bear of mine, he was threadbare and beginning to rip. Now the imps and ogres and everything else I'm fighting have thin skin and the teddy bear PJs he had.

Tip 2: Use something dead, dying, or doomed. The Kernelsprite will avoid a prototyping with things it doesn't like, but it has an attraction to things with one of the three D's. It wants the D. This also applies to a Tier-2 prototyping, and actually it applies to that more.

Tip 3: For the Tier-1 Prototyping, don't use something you're emotionally attached to. I had a little bit of trouble fighting the things with the features of my childhood teddy bear.

Remember to do this prototyping before entering the Medium. A void session is inherently unwinnable without a Null-Void Double Reacharound Glitch.

PART I SECTION II ARTICLE III-TIER 2 PROTOTYPING

Tier-2 Protoyping is like Tier-1 but requires a little bit more effort, as the Kernelsprite will become more opinionated based on what you already put in.

Tip 1: Of everything in the Tier-2 section, this is the most important; don't do this until after entering the Medium. Skip this article into Section 3 if you're pressed for time on the countdown. Remember, a Pre-Medium prototyping will affect your enemies, you don't want to give them too many powers.

Tip 2: Again, think of the 3 D's. The Kernelsprite is attached to these things and it makes your life so much easier when Prototyping if it'll accept what you try to put in. Since you'll be doing this after you've entered the medium, feel free to use Grandma's ashes or whatever sentimental stuff you want. It won't affect your enemies.

Tip 3: Tier-2 Prototyping should occur once you're already in the Medium. I cannot stress this enough.

Tip 4: If your Tier-1 prototyping was never alive or semi-intelligent, make sure to put something with a level of sentience into it since this'll be your guide. I've found that perception is important here. The level of sentiment attached to my teddy bear caused it to be successful as a guide, if a bit silly. My friend Anne, on the other hand, put in an old doll of her grandmother's which had no meaning to anyone but Anne's Grandma, and it just floated around silently until Anne also put in her grandmother's ashes, which gave the personality.

Tip 5: Reread Tip 3.

Tip 6: If you managed to put in an acceptable guide Tier-1 like I did, use the Tier-2 prototyping to arm it. For example, I put in a knife to Tier-2 Prototype my Teddysprite, and I am glad I didn't do that until I'd already entered the Medium, otherwise all those Underlings I fought would have had sharp objects to kill me with.

Other than that, Prototyping the Kernelsprite is up to you. Be creative, I guess.

PART I SECTION II ARTICLE IV-ALTERNATE PROTOTYPINGS

This is basically what happens if you Tier-1 after entering the Medium or Tier-2 before.

Prototyping before entry is necessary to upgrade Skaia-(your Sprite will tell you all about that, it's not my job to explain)-to its final form. Without doing so, the game becomes an unwinnable "Void" session. This is bad.

I've already gone over the consequences of doing a second Prototyping before entry. It's not good, but not as bad as creating a Void session.

PART I SECTION III-THE CLIENT


	3. The Client

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaz instructs the client player on what to do while entering the session.

PART I SECTION III-THE CLIENT

Most of what I've already done applies more to the server player than to the client, so I thought I'd make some instructions for the client now. Sorry it's so short.

PART I SECTION III ARTICLE I-THOSE BIG MACHINES THAT JUST GOT DROPPED IN YOUR HOUSE

The server player has deployed the Phernalia registry. If they follow the instructions I gave them earlier, all you have to do right now is wait by the Totem Lathe, the one that isn't a bulky square. After the cruxite dowel and the pre-punched card are placed near you, your work begins. Insert the pre-punched card and the cruxite dowel into the correct spots on the Lathe. Then take the carved totem to the Alchemeter, the big platformy one. Some cruxite object will appear that you have to break in some way in order to survive the meteor directed at your house. Make sure you get the Kernelsprite Tier-1 Prototyped by now.

PART I SECTION III ARTICLE II-THE GLOWING GIBBERISH BALL

That's the Kernelsprite. Maybe if you can, Tier-1 Prototype it. Remember the tips in the last session. This can also be done by the server if you're in a hurry. It's all up to you. Sburb has no single right or wrong answer with this stuff. That can be frustrating, especially if you're writing a walkthrough. Trust me, you'll manage it.

PART I SECTION III ARTICLE III-THE CRUXITE OBJECT

This is what appeared after you used the carved totem on the Alchemeter. You'll have to "break" it. If it's a fruit, take a bite, if it's a bottle, smash it, if it's an egg, hatch it(trust me, you'll have plenty of time. And that's a pun, you'll see in later parts), if it's a pinata, whack it or shoot it or something. This is really complicated and Sburb could throw anything at you, but my research on other sessions points to pinatas and eggs being the most common. I don't know why.

PART I SECTION IV-RECAP AND REPEAT


	4. Recap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaz recaps the information he gave in Part I

PART I SECTION IV-RECAP AND REPEAT

Here I'll just go and recap the information I've told you so far, as well as give examples of how it worked for me.

PART I SECTION IV ARTICLE I-RECAP

Remember the Cruxtruder is a bulky square thing with a tube. It'll extrude a cruxite dowel when something heavy is dropped on the lid. A countdown will also start, telling you how long the client has to live. The Kernelsprite will appear as well. Tier-1 Prototype it. Remember the 3 D's as well as the other tips I gave you.

Take the cruxite dowel to the Totem Lathe with the Pre-Punched Card to create a Carved Totem. Take the totem to the Alchemeter to create a cruxite object. Then break it. I told you how back in Section III Article III.

As long as all of this gets done, you should be fine.

PART I SECTION IV ARTICLE II-REPEAT

You'll have to repeat this process for every player you have in the game. You need at least two people for the session to work, but three or four is a good minimum if you don't want a Null, Void, or Dead session(Unwinnable for all of these, aside from very special cases).

This gets harder the later the game goes. The challenge of the cruxite object will become increasingly difficult, the meteor gets bigger, stuff like that. Luckily for you, the time won't be directly going down as long as you don't fuck around too much. And you should be knowing more and more about how to do this from the experience of the people in your session before you.

This part of the walkthrough is only meant to get you through the first one. Sburb will throw everything it can at you, and you have to be ready for it yourself. It's part of how the game works.

PART I SECTION IV ARTICLE III-MY EXAMPLE

As soon as my friend Evie(my server player) and I figured out what we had to do(thankfully we had tentacleTherapist's walkthrough to help), we used my (now broken) bed. I was not happy. Especially since she also ripped out my toilet when she was figuring out the controls. Anyway, I threw that old teddy bear of mine into the Kernelsprite, despite the stated belief of tentacleTherapist that it was useless. Then I ran over to where the totem lathe was and noticed that Evie had taken care of that. I grabbed the totem and moved on to the Alchemeter, which produced an egg. I ended up cracking it open like I was about to cook it. Then the meteor hit.

But I was already in the Medium.

You will be soon too.

Good luck.

PART II-WELCOME TO THE MEDIUM


	5. Underlings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that the readers have entered the medium, Chaz instructs them on some creatures they may face

PART II-WELCOME TO THE MEDIUM

So you've entered the Medium, escaped the meteor, prototyped your Kernelsprite, think things'll be easier now?

Wrong.

That was only the beginning. Act 1, if you will. We've got a long way to go.

PART II SECTION I-UNDERLINGS

These are monsters you have to fight now. They'll drop grist and give you rungs on your Echeladder. There are five main types, as well as a few lesser ones, but they can be made from any sort of grist, and don't even get me started on how much variance there will be based on what you put in the Kernelsprite.

PART II SECTION I ARTICLE I-IMPS, OGRES, AND LICHES, OH MY

This is about the five types of Underlings: Imps, Liches, Basilisks, Ogres, and Giclopes. Also existent are some called Acherons, Titachnids, as well as some especially powerful ones I don't know the names of. These aren't anything I know much about, having only heard of the large ones, which seem to exist more as a threat to the player's Guardian than to the player themself, and only encountering Acherons and Titachnids extremely late in the game.

Imps: These are the most numerous, the weakest, the silliest, and the most likely to be actually turned to your side. But they'll also be mostly useless, so I'd suggest just killing them. They'll drop grist and give you experience without being able to cause you major harm. Imps will show up nigh-immediately upon your entry to the Medium and are very small.

Liches: These are rarer and much more powerful than Imps. They'll show up in the mid-to-late stages of the game. By then you should be powerful enough to dispatch them as easily as the Imps. There is one exceptionally powerful Lich, called the Lich Queen, that I've heard about. She supposedly shows up during the hardest point in the game in order to make it even harder.

Basilisks: These are lizardlike, firebreathing underlings. They have a great variation in size and can pose quite a challenge if you're not prepared. Under no circumstances do you fight them with shaving cream, especially barbasol. They show up in the early-middle stages of the game.

Ogres: These are huge Underlings. They show up early in the game and will use weapons that are appropriated items from your house. You'd better hope your Sprite and your server player can help you when you first encounter them. After a while, they should be easy, as long as you climb your Echeladder well enough.

Giclopes: Remember how I called Ogres huge? They're Imps compared to most Giclopes, though Giclopes vary greatly in size, like Basilisks. Remember how I called Ogres tough? They're still Imps compared to Giclopes. Giclopes show up around the same time as Basilisks and can kick your ass. See your first one? Run unless you have an ally or you've reached very high on your Echeladder. Eventually you can get them easily though, once you've been fighting them long enough, just like Ogres, Liches, and Basilisks.

Others do exist. And while I have more articles for this section, I have to go, I think I see an army of Liches and Imps coming my way.

PART II SECTION I ARTICLE II-PROTOTYPINGS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, Acherons, Titachnids, and the Lich Queen are actual Underlings, that John faced while causing the Scratch.


	6. Strife Specibus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Chaz has described the underlings, he tells the reader how to defend themself.

PART II SECTION I ARTICLE II-PROTOTYPINGS

Now, these Underlings are going to have various added aspects on them. A whimsical outfit on the imps, perhaps. A missing limb. Wings. Cyberkinetic limbs. Anything, really.

Either way, it came from your Kernelsprite.

What you put into the Kernelsprite before you entered the Medium affects the Underlings as well as the Prospitan and Dersite Carapacians. Don't know about Prospit and Derse? Ask your sprite. That kind of thing is their job to tell you now. So, say you put in a raggedy teddy bear like I did. The Underlings will gain its outfit, maybe have some holes with stuffing coming out.

And every person to enter compunds the effects. When Evie came in with a clock in her Kernelsprite, the Underlings began to ring, and tick. Their outfits suddenly had clock hands. When Evie's server Sula entered with a soap opera box set(her mom had thousands of these lying around and Sula is pissed at her Server for the melodrama exhibited by her Sprite), the Underlings became overly dramatic. And they also started throwing DVDs like shurikens. When Jack, the stoner of our group and Sula's server player, came in with a dead bird he'd picked up off the street, the Underlings got wings. Made things a lot harder for us. Luckily Anne, who entered after Jack, managed to reverse the damage with that armless doll of her grandmother's I mentioned in Part I Section II Article III. When the monsters you're fighting have wings as forelimbs instead of sprouting from their backs, things are a lot easier. But Anne's server player Leon, our final player, threw in a prototype for a robot he was working on. Now the Underlings have robot legs.

Most of the Underlings aren't affected by every prototyping. They usually take aspects from about half, sometimes only one, sometimes all of them. The point is, the prototypings will also affect the final boss. To the advantage of the boss.

PART II SECTION I ARTICLE III-FIGHTING THESE MONSTERS

Right, in your Sylladex, there should be a Strife Specibus. Allocate something to it to use as a weapon. Hopefully you've done this long before now. If you haven't, now's the time.

Using your weapon, attack the Underlings. Duh. Scale your Echeladder, and you'll get better at this. After a while, your weapon won't seem as good, it'll be pretty useless. Use Alchemy(covered next section) to combine it with various other items you have. This should make it much better.

Also, remember the idea of weaponizing your Sylladex. If you put something in where a card already is, the thing being replaced will rocket out of the Sylladex. In a pinch, this will be a very useful tool.

Good luck.

PART II SECTION II-ALCHEMY


End file.
